Free Bond - 27 - Never send flowers by John Gardner Page B

apology, in the ultimate way that a woman could, Fredericka appeared to have withdrawn again. She was not the ice queen, nor was there obvious anger, but the conversation finally dwindled into one of monosyllabic, sometimes terse, responses, and she drove out to Grindelwald in near silence.
    The police presence was obvious. Two cars and a police van blocked the little road to the chair lift, and a large sign, in three languages-German, French and English-proclaimed that the chair lift up the mountain, to the First area with its great view of the Grindelwald Basin, was closed until further notice. The entrance was also blocked off with yellow crime scene tape. A uniformed inspector stood, with a plump, untidy-looking man in civilian clothes, by the chair lift entrance. The plainclothes man held a pigskin folder loosely under one arm, and paid scant attention to their arrival.
    The uniformed officer obviously knew Fredericka, for he greeted her by name and, in turn, she introduced Bond to `Inspector Ponsin'. He nodded gravely, and turned to the civilian.
    `This is Detective Bodo Lempke, of the Interlaken police department, in charge of the investigation." He waved a hand between them, flapping it like a fish's fill.
    `I already know Herr Lempke,' Fredericka said somewhat distantly.
    Lempke gave them a smile which reminded Bond of the kind of greeting he might expect from an idiot, for the man s face had about it a lumpish, peasant look, his lips splitting into a wide curving clown's mouth.
    `So,' he said in uncertain English, the voice gruff and flat, with little enthusiasm. `You are what my friends in the Metropolitan Police call "funnies", yes? Read that once, funnies", in a spy yarn, and never believed it until my British colleagues said it was true, what they called you." He laughed, mirthless and without the smile.
    All in all, Bond considered, Bodo Lempke was the most dangerous type of policeman. Like the best kind of spy, the man was totally grey, lacking any colour in his personality.
    `Well,' Bodo continued, `you wish to view where the deed was done, yes? Though there's nothing interesting about it. Few clues; no reasons; except evidence which gives us the name or assumed name of the killer." `You have a name?" `Oh, sure. Nobody tell you this?" `No." This one, Bond thought, was as tricky as a barrelful of anacondas. His type was usually described as one who had difficulty in catching the eye of a waiter. Mr Lempke would have had problems catching the attention of a pickpocket, even if he had just flashed a wad of money and crammed it into the sucker pocket at his hip.
    Fredericka rode up the chair lift with Inspector Ponsin, while Bond drew the heavy Bodo Lempke who certainly carried enough weight to tip the double set of chairs slightly. It was a beautiful, short ride up the slope during which Lempke remained silent except to remark on the cause of death.
    `You were told of the tetrodoxin, yes?" `Yes." Fight innocuousness with blandness.
    `Exotic, no?" `Very." `Very exotic?" `Exceptionally." `So." At the First viewing point, several policemen, uniformed and plainclothes, were doing what Bond presumed to be yet another careful search of the area which was marked off with more crime scene tape. A small group of men and women stood beside the long, log hut which was the restaurant.
    They looked dejected, as well they might: with the chair lift closed, their usual business would have dried to a trickle of probably discontented policemen looking for they knew not what.
    The air was fresh and clear, while the view from this vantage point was almost other worldly. Bond had his own reasons to feel overawed by mountains. For him, their grandeur an overworked word when people described the peaks and rocky graphs of the world's high places was tempered with respect. His parents had died on a mountain and, since childhood, while he was often moved by the beauty of the crags, bluffs and jagged outcrops of stone reaching towards the